


Of one to me little remains

by zinjadu



Series: And not to yield [4]
Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Action/Adventure, Anger, Ass-Kicking, Biotic Shepard (Mass Effect), Break Up, Canonical Character Death, Dark, Dark Thane Romance, Depression, F/M, Fights, Gen, Heavy Angst, Interspecies Romance, ME2 is a bad time, Memories, Mind whammy, Missions, Zahra Shepard is not okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:14:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 30
Words: 17,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24662869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zinjadu/pseuds/zinjadu
Summary: Zahra Shepard is brought back for a mission she can't refuse, but no one said she had to be okay with it.  Pissed off and barely holding it together, she does the job in front of her.   And tries not to think too much about anything else.  Problem is her own mind won't let her be.Short snap-shots of how much of a bad time Mass Effect 2 was for my Shepard, including a bad break up and a darker take on the Thane romance.  Well... kind of a darker take on everything.For all 16 people who read this: I'm updating this fic all the way today.  Real life is about to hit like a ton of bricks (in a good way), and I decided it would be better to just finish this series off in a big go.  Thank you for reading, and watch out for the ME3 and post-ME3 fics to be up soon, also in their entirety.
Relationships: David Anderson & Shepard, Female Shepard & Garrus Vakarian, Female Shepard & Jacob Taylor, Female Shepard & Mordin Solus, Female Shepard & Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, Female Shepard & Urdnot Wrex, Grunt & Female Shepard (Mass Effect), Illusive Man | Jack Harper & Female Shepard, Jack | Subject Zero & Female Shepard, Jeff "Joker" Moreau & Female Shepard, Kaidan Alenko/Female Shepard, Kasumi Goto & Shepard, Legion & Female Shepard, Miranda Lawson & Female Shepard, Samara & Female Shepard (Mass Effect), Thane Krios/Female Shepard, Zaeed Massani & Female Shepard
Series: And not to yield [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1604602
Comments: 145
Kudos: 21





	1. Scars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After waking up and fighting her way out a Cerberus lab, Zahra gets a good look at herself. She doesn't like what she sees.

Water drip, dripped, dripped from the tap until it slowly petered out. She stared into the sink, her hands gripping at the basin. Cold, like all metal in space, cold and hard and unyielding. 

“Fuck it.”

Zahra raised her eyes and finally met her own reflection head on. Bright red lines traced across her face. Fissures in her skin, the sandy skin of her mother’s people. Pity the nose was the same. God, she hated her nose. Turning her shorn head one way then the other, it was still the same hawk’s beak as her mother’s.

“Couldn’t have one thing different, could you, you asshole?” 

Except it was all different. Aside from the baleful burn of her inorganic parts, her skin was unblemished. There was no scar through her left eyebrow where she’d clipped the kitchen cupboards as a kid, or the fine lines on her hands from the fights she’d gotten into—on Mindoir, in basic, in the field.

She ripped off her top, and the story was the same. No fat pucker of skin and spider-web of lines from the gunshot through her shoulder from the slaver raid. No patch of oddly colored skin from the skin graft after the thresher maw’s spit had nearly hit her square.

Her scars were gone. The memories on her body erased, replaced. Replaced by parts that weren’t her.

Glass shattered. Blood dripped onto the clean tile floor. 

The broken mirror reflected her vicious smile a dozen times over, fractured and splintered. Broken, but holding together at the cracks.

“Fuck you, you son of a bitch.” Her voice was a rasp, raw from disuse. “You brought me back, and you have me over a barrel. We both know it. But.” She coughed and spat into the basin. “I will come for you. And I hope you were listening.”

Then, one by one, she pulled the shards of glass from her hand and bandaged it. Without medi-gel, the cuts would scar.


	2. Silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She lives in the silence between the stars, but that's only because the silence is better than screaming.

The SR-2 hummed contentedly in the void of space. The crew chatted all around her. She heard them. It was hard not to hear them. The story all over the ship was the same: former Alliance or people trying to escape. Trying to do a little good in the meantime.

She said as little as possible back. 

What would she say? Taylor, shame you couldn’t hack being a real marine. Lawson, you’re a bitch, but at least you’re honest about it. Chambers, keep your analysis away from me. Donnelly, fucking  _ shut it _ . Daniels… keep up the good work. 

So there were a few that didn’t set her teeth on edge or make her knuckles itch. Joker was back at the helm, and though he squabbled with the AI, Zahra thought that bickering might be worth the price of admission. But the AI was everywhere, listening. The whole ship was bugged.

The son of a bitch that brought her back was too much of a control freak to not have.

He gave her people, like they were toys to distract her. Like they had a patch on the crew of the Normandy. The real one. Zaeed grumbled and talked in a low rasp, full of blood and death, but it wasn’t anything she hadn’t heard before. Kasumi. Zahra skirted the thief who sat surrounded by mementos of a dead lover. Was she looking at how someone else had lived? Had  _ he _ gone through that? She didn’t know. Didn’t want to. Had to.

Anderson stonewalled her.

Doctor Chakwas was a surprise, though Zahra saw another lever behind the doctor. It was the brandy’s fault they’d talked so much at all. Then she found out she could now drink a krogan under the table. All those fancy cybernetics tick-tick-ticking over. Humming and burning just under her skin. Her skin that burned all the time.

Mordin talked enough for the both of them, and she found herself cooling her heels in his lab instead of in her cabin. In her cabin where a picture sat like a cruel taunt:  _ here he is, Shepard, oh I knew, and you can look all you like, but no touching.  _ All it took was a single question for Mordin to go off on at least five tangents that kept her occupied all without having to open her mouth.

Because every time she opened her mouth, she didn’t know if she’d start screaming or not. Not a good set of options, so she avoided it.

Being dead had probably warped her a bit.

Man, that weak-chinned therapist they made her see after Akuze would be so proud of her right now.

Or not.

Since she was working for the people who  _ fucking made Akuze happen _ . She probably had some aggression to work through.

Garrus holed up in the main battery like an irritated cat. Not that she blamed him. Even with him, it was hard to know how far she could go. Then she went and said, “How’s the face?”

“Hurts like a son of a bitch, but it’s going to pale in comparison to what I’m going to do to Sidonis.”

“You been drawing up plans, or still mentally reviewing options?” 

This was easy, familiar. Better. Talk about  _ them _ not her. No heart-to-hearts like on the Normandy. No telling stories about her childhood with everyone around the mess table, no teasing about her driving, or who was her favorite. It had always been Wrex anyway. He _ liked  _ her driving.

“You don’t suppose Doctor Chakwas would mind if I looked over some of her medical equipment? I can think of a few uses for those.”

“Slight reminder, Garrus. No torture on the ship. It might fly Cerberus colors, but I’m not them.” That came out harder than she expected. Garrus’s face flange—the one that wasn’t bandaged—twitched. 

“Didn’t think you were, Shepard. Sorry, get a bit caught up in it.”

She waved it away and left. What else could she say? What else was there to say? Only on Freedom’s Progress, only seeing Tali again had made her feel like herself, rather than the shorn and cobbled together woman she was. But even that was soured by the young woman’s distrust of the markings on the hull of the ship she’d rode on. Protest didn’t matter, wouldn’t matter. Only what she  _ did _ would ever mean anything.

She walked the ship, boots stomping on the floor, but it wasn’t quite right. This was the SR-2. Not the Normandy. The mission was the same, but the view was all wrong. Save the galaxy, save our people, but the harsh white lights of the ship made her flinch. Miranda claimed that her eyes were still adjusting to taking in light. Let her keep thinking that.

Zahra held her peace. Kept her mouth shut. Didn’t send a message. Didn’t look too long at the picture on her desk. Didn’t even think too much. She lived in the quiet. In the quiet of the grave, along with all she’d lost. Friends. Family. A lover she’d never— 

Clenching her jaw, she steered her mind away from him. He was going to be used against her somehow, and even though she knew that, it would probably still work.

But it was all a matter of time, and the time would come when she could scream. When she could yell and rage and do what she did best. 

“Where to, Commander?” Joker’s voice cracked over the comms.

“Korlus. We got a krogan warlord to pick up.”

“Oh, always wanted one of those. I mean, yes, ma’am.”

The ship lurched through the relay, and she stared down at the galaxy map with impassive grey eyes. Until that day, she had a job to do, and she’d promised the graves of her sisters she’d never be too late ever again. She wasn’t about to go back on that now.


	3. Child

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grunt is baby. A baby with a shotgun. Zahra isn't sure that she's the best person to be bringing him up, either.

Their boots hit the ground, and Zahra checked her six. Garrus unholstered his sniper rifle, and Grunt carried a heavy shotgun. Hours out of the tank, and he was ready to fight. The dust of the planet kicked up, and the filters in her hard suit whirred into life.

Garrus was quiet, he never did chatter much on comms, but Grunt poked and prodded at everything. His head cocked, trying to locate the source of a sound, but he kept close. 

“Smells dead, Shepard.” The krogan’s deep baritone rumbled through the comms, and was it just her thinking it was weird that a day-old kid sounded like that? He was fully grown sure, stepping out of the tank ready to fight, but that just wasn’t right.

“How can you smell anything through the filters?” Garrus asked.

“Turned them off.”

“Grunt, turn on your filters,” she said.

“Then I can’t smell things, Shepard. How can I fight if I can’t smell the enemy coming?”

“That’s an  _ order _ , Grunt.”

“That’s a bad order. You shouldn’t be Battlemaster.”

_ Ten deep breaths _ . Dad had said that, but Mom had said,  _ You’ll have a child as stubborn as you one day _ . Except this kid was a krogan with natural armor plating, redundant organ systems, and were a fucking nightmare to fight. And he didn’t respond to anything except a show of brute force.

So she hit him full in his helmet with the butt of her gun.

It didn’t phase him, but it did get his attention. “You wanna try that one again?”

The growl made her monkey brain almost panic and the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Her helmet clinked against his, and through their visors they stared at each other like two angry bulls with locked horns. Massive shoulders slumped, and his head turned away. 

“No.” His tone was sulky, and that was closer to the kid he was than the warrior he was engineered to be.

Maybe she’d tell him about his brothers one day. All the failures who had still held the line. Maybe it would mean something to him. Maybe it wouldn’t. But for now, he was doing as he was told. That was good enough for the mission.

But he was going to have to learn to think for himself, to go beyond the information Okeer had fed him in the tank. And she had no idea what she was doing.

“Come on, let’s get that beacon.” 

When the mecs started pouring out of the hills, Grunt laughed as he destroyed them, following close behind her as Garrus picked off the ones around the shuttle. He was as happy as a kid in a candy store, and Zahra thought maybe she’d introduce him to ice cream. With sprinkles.

She’d loved sprinkles as a kid. Didn’t know if krogans liked ice cream at all, but he’d earned it.


	4. Bite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack reminds Zahra of a street dog; she was always ready to bite.

The red dimness of the engineering underdeck reminded her of Omega, but quieter. There was a fine line between comfort and danger where Jack chose to set herself up. A cot and a lot of ammo were all she asked for. The girl barked and snapped like a Rio street dog, but Zahra had always known when the dogs were just scared and hungry and which ones were seconds away from sinking teeth into your thigh.

Jae-min and Miles had despaired of the day she’d find herself done in not by an enemy but a dog she’d read wrong. Never did, though.

“What you keep coming around here for, Shepard?” Jack’s scratchy voice always had a note of challenge in it. Always pushing.

“Upstairs is a bit too squeaky clean. And bright.”

“Ha! Yeah, no shit. Want to bet that Lawson chose the lighting just so it makes her ass look better?”

“Nah, that’s a sucker’s bet.” Her smirk had a tinge of red to it, her face taking its own sweet time to heal.  _ Positive outlook _ . Hard to be positive when they didn’t even let you die peacefully. The scars on her knuckles were pale against her dark skin, and went white when she clenched her fingers into a fist. 

Which was happening a lot lately.

“Well, if you think Cerberus is going to let you go, you  _ are _ a sucker. You can’t trust them.” Big brown eyes narrowed, and full lips pulled back in a snarl. Like Zahra didn’t know that already, but she was getting fucking tired of defending herself. She was backed against the wall, and that creepy-tech-eyed SOB  _ knew _ it.

“And you aren’t going to let me forget it, Jack. See you around,” she said, and left before the dog decided to bite her just in case. 

Not that she ever blamed the dog. Zahra knew the reasons for the snapping and snarling, and one day she’d get to visit hell on the head that had done it. That’d be a really good day.


	5. Temptation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Horizon, and seeing Kaidan didn't go like she expected at all, Zahra finds herself in a bit of temptation.

The base beat thumped in Zahra’s chest. Aria’s favor—and no small amount of creds—earned a private room, and a private, pliable dancer. Pliable, nubile, all sorts of promises in those blue eyes and on those purple-painted lips. 

How had she been so stupid? 

Her hand ran up the girl’s leg, smooth and strong and whole. Isn’t this what asari girls did? Dance, run merc for a while, live wild. No harm, nothing wrong. Hips hovered just over her leg, the heat of the girl so close.

Always asking after him last, like he was the last thing she’d thought of when he’d been the first.

Lips grazed her ear, and her fingers curled around the back of the girl’s neck. So simple, it would be so very, very simple. Just bodies in space. The dancer’s body pressed close, and her hips rose up as her eyes drifted shut. Behind her eyes was just the pulsing red of the club, of blood.

The fucking picture in her cabin, stonewalled by Anderson, and the irresistible bait that had been Horizon. She’d known it was bait and run anyway. 

Smooth, cool glass pressed to her lips, making her eyes flutter open. Staring up into those sultry blue eyes, Zahra raised one black brow. The girl smirked and waved a vial of red gains in front of her eyes. Another temptation, the perfect drug for someone like her and the dancer both. The dancer’s biotics, however, weren’t terribly strong.

His was the most controlled biotic field she’d ever felt. Locked down tight, except for right before Ilos.

_ I swear though, if anything happens to you… _

She shoved the dancer off of her. The girl fell backwards in an undignified sprawl, the grace shocked out of her. For half a second, fear flickered across a face terribly too young, quickly replaced by an attempt to be sultry. Zahra stood, staring down at the girl, and the vial that rolled across the floor.

_ Love _ . He’d said love. No,  _ loved _ . Past tense. Had she loved him? Did she?

“Get up, and get out of here. You aren’t cut out of this line of work.” A glower twisted the dancer’s delicate features. Zahra ignored it and picked up her guns and holstered them with a satisfying snap of the mag clips.

Didn’t matter now, either way. She had a job to do.

And maybe, she didn’t know. Maybe she’d take care.


	6. Grown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who the hell gave Tali permission to grow up while Zahra had been dead?

Who the hell gave the kid permission to grow up?

Tali stood tall and proud and brilliant even in her people’s ruins. Her voice was sharp, her invectives pointed, and her movements controlled and precise. For half a second, Zahra’s vision doubled and she saw the kid who couldn’t stand still. The kid who dug herself into the guts of the Normandy because she didn’t know if she’d be welcome on board. The kid who had asked how to reject human boys without hurting their feelings.

Zahra strongly suspected Tali would just use a shotgun now.

“You sure this is going to be alright? The whole ship is Cerberus crew, Tali.” Zahra spoke in low tones as they dashed between shadows back to the LZ.

The persistent burn of electronics wafted under her nose.

Tali huffed. “But  _ you’re _ the one in charge, right?”

“On the ship, yes.” To a degree. There was no ignoring the bread crumb trails and games the illusive asshole played with her, with her friends. With  _ him _ . No denying the leash that tech-eyed son of a bitch kept her on, or how it bit into her new flesh. It _ was _ her new flesh.

“That does not fill me with confidence,” Tali muttered. The bright points of her eyes drifted to Lawson. In the calculation of wanting to keep Cerberus at a far remove and Tali’s safety, the choice hadn’t been hard. Even if it left a bad taste in Zahra’s mouth.

“You and Garrus are meant to distract me, I’m sure,” Zahra said quietly, her comms muted. Tali nodded with one last glance back at Garrus. Garrus who half-walked Reager to his own ship. “Joker, too. Give me some illusion of control.”

“You think this Illusive Man will betray you? Wouldn’t that be risky for him?”

“Not if he thinks humanity has more to gain by it.”

Tali hummed darkly. What would the Tali of two years ago done? Would she have even thought like this? All sharp questions and heated mistrust? Glowing eyes watched her carefully, older than two years could account for. God, how much had she missed?

Zahra’s breastbone cracked and split, like the plates of a planet’s crust shifting. There was something under the surface of her that strove to bubble to the surface. Something she’d thought was as cold and dead as she’d been two years ago. 

Her hand gripped Tali’s shoulder tightly. “But I know you’re too smart to get taken in by anything. You just keep being your skeptical self with a shotgun.”

“I would say ‘like old times’, but somehow I think you’re tired of hearing that.” Tali’s dry tone touched off a smirk on Zahra’s face, pulling against cybernetic wires. A smirk that turned into a huff that transformed into an outright laugh. A mirthless bark, but more than she’d done since she’d risen from the slab she’d been remade on. Helmet tilted, the shadow of Tali’s face suggested a smile. The not quite so young quarian gripped Zarha’s arm. Tight. “I’ve got your back, Shepard.”

_ Norah’s million-watt smile lights up the room, blue ribbon pinned on the front of her shirt _ —Zahra blinked. Her throat closed up, and she managed to force a smile on her face. 

Yeah, the kid really had grown up. Christ, what had she missed? Too much, way too fucking much.

“I know, Tali.” She allowed herself one last squeeze of Tali’s shoulder. “I know.”


	7. Abandoned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone grows up. Just not always in ways you like. Or expect. Aka, Zahra meets Liara on Illium.

_ I’m sorry _ .

The words were on the tip of her tongue. Nyxeris was already dead. Where Liara dumped her body, Zahra didn’t know. And when the hell did Liara learn to dump bodies at all? 

The window of Liara’s office overlooked the trading floor. Illium shone bright and sparkling outside that window. But the light from outside the window threw shadows across a face that wasn’t quiet so young anymore. Her cheeks were still around, but there were grim lines at the edge of her mouth. A darkness lived in her blue eyes, now.

“Is there anything else I can do?” Zahra asked even though she already knew the answer.

Liara shook her head, mouth a grim line as she called up another file on her computer. “No, but I appreciate the offer Shepard. I have a lot of work to do if I am going to track down the Shadow Broker.”

Zahra forced herself to stand.

The dismissal was clear. Liara, the young academic who had treated dinner like an exercise in cultural anthropology. Who had enthused about lost civilizations and lost herself in reading dense enough to knock a krogan senseless. 

The door slid open with a hiss. Garrus and Tali were waiting below to get on with the job. Maybe their last job.

She turned, watching Liara as she sifted through intel and reports and God knew what else. Throwing Liara over her shoulder and forcibly removing her from Illium probably wouldn’t go well. Even when she’d been a wide-eyed academic, Liara had packed a punch. 

Didn’t think she’d be thanked. Not like last time, when she’d hauled a scared girl off of Therum. 

Nothing for it. Liara wasn’t that girl anymore. Wasn’t the girl who reminded Zahra of her own little sister. Instead, Zahra saw a girl without a mother, without a father, turned out by an Alliance that had never trusted her in the first place, friends drifted away. And Zahra? The person who had swooped into her life and shaken it to the foundations.

She’d been dead.

Blue eyes rose to meet grey, a bland expression on a face that had once been expressive. “I’ll let you know when I’m ready, Shepard. Don’t worry about that. I couldn’t do it without you.”

Except, she’d had to. Had to do it all without anyone.

“Alright,” Zahra said. There was nothing she could think of to say as she left Liara’s well-lit office.

_ Blood trickles between Karima’s open, blank eyes, gone, gone, gone, too late, too late to save her _ —The taste of failure was sour on her tongue.


	8. Address

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seriously, how do so many people have Shepard's email address? I have questions.

How the hell did so many people have her email address?

That couldn’t be secure. Oh, she would bet anything that the illusive asshole monitored it. Kept a backlog somewhere of everything anyone sent her. Or anything she sent.

That was why she never sent anything.

Not even after Kaidan’s voice had reached across lightyears to find her. What could she have said? Said and said for him alone? Not a God damn thing, that’s what. There was nothing she had that was her own anymore.

The letter from Toombs was nearly a relief. All the vitriol she wanted to spew all over this too-clean ship written out in angry type. She could just imagine him pounding at a keyboard, a feverish light in his eyes. God, even thinking of his face still made her knuckles itch, the asshole. But she read his letter a lot. Let the illusive SOB see how much time she spent with that hateful letter up. How she lovingly read every word and smiled.

Because there had to be cameras in addition to audio pickups all over the ship.

Being paranoid didn’t mean they weren’t out to get her. Though, she supposed they’d already caught her. Caught her in a net of cybernetics and a mission she couldn’t refuse.

Talitha’s letter made a smile crack across her face. It hurt, the way her skin still broke and fissured and pulled at the muscles and wires. But the kid was doing okay. That was a precious bit of good news. 

Once, she’d gotten updates on the girl. Nothing detailed, but the treatment facility let her know that Talitha was progressing. There were no updates dated after the day Zahra had been spaced, and that was fine. At least there hadn’t been any information sent into an uncaring void. 

But they’d been using people she cared about to get to her. 

Zahra archived Talitha’s email and didn’t write back. That would only end poorly. If she told herself that enough times, she could believe it.


	9. Center

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The center is not holding, and Zahra lives on borrowed stability.

It was like a magnet pulling her to the crew deck, down from the CIC, up from engineering, away from a cabin she couldn’t stand anyway. The justicar meditated, a blue corona around her body. The assassin sat still as a statue, hands clasped in contemplation. While all the others moved and brushed shoulders, they were still.

Samara gazed out at the stars, but she met Zahra’s eyes with her unwavering blue. There was no getting away from that gaze, or the sense of being seen  _ through _ . Right down to her bones, mineral and metal alike. 

Thane disappeared into his own memories, but when he came up it wasn’t with the sputter of a drowning man. He regarded her with black eyes that softened in a way no assassin’s should.

The fuzz of her hair got longer, growing out from the smooth head she’d woken up with, and Jack dryly remarked, “Good, I don’t like you copying my style.”

Zahra let it pass without comment.

The skin of her face healed slowly. Millimeter by millimeter. Underneath skin that was too smooth, the cybernetics heated up just underneath the surface.

“That’s only in your head,” Doctor Chakwas told her. Garrus hummed and watched her with a bird-like stare. “Tell you what, when I get this bandage off we can compare notes. Maybe Chakwas has some good stuff hidden away.”

In the middle of the night ship-board time she woke up covered in a sheen of sweat. Chest tight, lungs burning. Her hands convulsively reached for the back of her neck where the severed breathing tube had been.

“Irresponsible to give you sleeping aid without further description of symptoms. Need more information.” Mordin blinked at her in the harsh light of his lab. Did he ever sleep?

“Never mind,” she said and stomped away. 

The glass of the observation lounge was cool on her cheek, and Samara didn’t mind quiet company. In life support control the air was dry and crisp, and Thane didn’t ask her questions she didn’t know how to answer.

They were always  _ there _ . Like stars themselves, steady and quiet. Certain. Sure.

Things she had forgotten how to be. Or had been ripped out of her to make room for the things in her body. The center had gone out of her, and Zahra didn’t know if she could get it back. Or if she wanted it back. But maybe she could borrow someone else’s from time to time. 


	10. Promise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time to start the personal quests! I mean... Zahra reluctantly beings to help her crew tidy up their unfinished business. Starting with someone she doesn't want to help at all.

“I have a sister, Shepard.”

The admission slammed into Zahra’s gut like a krogan’s charge. How had she even gotten to this point? Oh, right. Because Chambers wouldn’t shut the fuck up about Lawson’s request to speak with her. So Zahra had stomped through the door right into proof that Lawson was human.

Who the fuck gave the woman the permission to be something other than a Cerberus lackey?

But once the words were said, there was no pretending Zahra hadn’t heard them.

She ran a hand through her short hair. A spark of static leapt to her finger, and the tingle reminded her of another time. Another place. Of two pairs of big dark eyes that had seen something in her, something more than Zahra deserved.

Could tell Lawson to go to hell.

_ You have to protect them now, Zahra-ahuva. _

Mom had told her that, when her sisters had been small. So small, so fragile. They blinked up at her with dark eyes, and she had stared down. Then, but then they’d  _ smiled _ . Those little chubby hands had reached for her and their faces broke into big, squishy grins, and Zahra had  _ promised _ . All of four years old, and she’d promised.

Hadn’t been able to keep it.

Not to her sisters, and not to her mother either. Blood had bubbled on Miriam’s lips as she died, pointing at the rifle, the order plain. And for once, Zahra hadn’t balked her mother. But now, now what would Mom think? To look at her daughter made of wires and metal by the woman who now asked for help. Had she lost her soul, somewhere between dying and being resurrected? Didn’t think the Torah had an answer for this, though.

_ You’re their big sister, Zahra-ahuva. That’s very important. They will always need you _ .

“Alright, we’ll rescue your sister,” she said flatly. Lawson’s sigh of relief was almost imperceptible, but it was there. Was that what she was now? Not the woman she’d been, but a collection of metal and anger? Though it was harder and harder to remember how she had been, once. Only in flashes, in moments, when she couldn’t avoid the banked coals of her memories.

“Thank you, Shepard. I’ll set up the meeting right away.”

Zahra left Lawson to it, and at the end, after betrayal and a lot of dead mercs, she shoved the Cerberus bitch toward her sister. 

One of them should get to have that much at least.


	11. Clan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing will bring a tear to a momma's eye like her baby killing a thresher maw. Or, how Grunt got a clan name but already had a clan.

“ _ This _ is the homeworld?” Grunt’s heavy head swivelled back and forth, his bright blue eyes taking in the repurposed ruins they stood in. Dust and broken machinery and a bitter pall of destruction that hung low in the atmosphere.

“Hm. Have been some improvements in this area. Signs of increased food stores, recent repairs, new structures,” Mordin rattled off. “Yes, first observations indicate clan Urdnot has done well. Very good.”

A growl rumbled through Grunt’s chest and into his throat. Zahra clipped his shoulder with her own, their armor clacking loudly together in the bunker-like structure. It was like standing in the pictures of Stalingrad, after the Germans had tried to take it in the Second World War. Her adolescent krogan stifled his growl, but kept up a steady stream of grumbles.

“Nothing ever matches the pictures,” she whispered.

* * *

  
Zahra rolled her shoulders. Neck still ached from headbutting Uvenk. Good thing she had a metal plate in her head or that stunt would have killed her, but Christ, she’d never thought a krogan could be officious. 

Would bureaucratic wonders never cease?

The open-air arena was more of the same, but Grunt moved like a kid who couldn’t sit still for anything. Checking his weapons, checking the grenades, sniffing the air; so restless it was almost like he was compelled to move.

“This is it, Shepard. I can feel it. My blood is on fire, and it’s  _ singing _ . HA! We’re going to show them what a tank bred krogan can do.”

“You want to activate the hammers?” 

He shook his head.

“You sure?” she pressed. “It’s your rite.”

“We’re krant. You doing it  _ is _ me doing it, and I want to be ready.” He pumped the action of the shotgun and a wide, flat-toothed grin curved his wide mouth. There was something almost Wrex-like about the grin, and Zarha wondered if Grunt knew he was copying mannerisms. But it lacked the sharpness that Wrex had. It was a  _ young _ grin. Young and eager and excited.

Zahra couldn’t help but smile back.

“Alright, buddy, we’re gonna kick some ass in three, two, one.”

Her closed fist slammed down on the activator. Heavy thuds rumbled through the ground and up her boots, into her teeth.

The maw was not a small one, but when Grunt laughed, Zahra did, too. The memory of Akuze was far away, distant from the gleeful krogan beside her. Was good to see him having fun, at least.

* * *

Kill a maw, get a clan. Zahra watched as Grunt sat in a group of other warriors and reenacted the fight for the umpteeth time. There was still a splatter of Uvenk’s blood on his armor. Arms crossed, she leaned on a handy bit of rubble. 

“Still stepping in it for your crew, eh, Shepard?” One red eye regarded her, baleful and bemused at the same time. 

“He’s a good kid. Glad he’s Urdnot now. It means he has a place.” 

“He had that before he came here.” Wrex heaved his bulk onto the rubble next to her. It sank and she slid down the slope. Their armor clacked together.

Tightness stretched behind her breastbone. Grunt’s bright blue-grey eyes glinted in the sickly light of Tuchanka’s sun. Bigger, realer than the other krogan around him. Or maybe, maybe that was just how she saw him. Him, not the image of what he was supposed to be.

Just a kid.

“Yeah, I suppose he did.” She smiled, the skin moving over her muscles and wires with less pain than before, and slammed her shoulder into Wrex. 

He nearly fell over.


	12. Flinch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of the "hospital" on Tuchanka won't leave Zahra alone. Neither will Mordin's initial response, whatever he says later, Zahra saw. Zahra knows. They're both made of regret.

_ Blood runs down between Karima’s eyes as the red light of a Reaper sweeps over Mindoir—Zahra sprints, heart in her throat and rifle in her hand toward the light—Norah screams high and childish, pierces the throbbing tone of the end of everything—Copper tang of blood in her mouth, in the air, a charnel house, a slaughter, twisted bodies on Eden Prime, in the hospital on Tuchanka, bodies, bodies, all bodies—  _

Zahra jerked awake, heart hammering in her metal-reinforced chest. The silky sheets bunched between her legs. She threw them off of her. They landed on the floor in a heap. Sweat coated her body. Too warm. Once, she’d been too cold in space, but she ran hot now. All the machine parts of her, probably.

At least this time it hadn’t been about spinning out in the middle of a starry field and gasping for breath. Was nice to have different nightmares. Change of pace. Was getting bored of the old ones. It was like the worst kind of remix imaginable, with the image of those mutilated krogan females appearing in stomach-turning flashes.

Bare feet slapped the floor. Foregoing a shower, she pulled on a uniform she would have gleefully burned. Would have set it alight herself, but she didn’t care enough to get new clothes. Had the cash for it.

No one to go shopping with though. No Ashley to coax her into killer boots. 

The harsh lights of the SR-2 still made her flinch on the main decks. Kept her own cabin darker, but in the main areas, the white light made the space behind her eyes throb. A dull ache. But she’d been aching since she woke up on that table. What was one more?

What was one more in the count? In the measure of life?

Ends and means, means and ends.

Zahra turned the words over in her head, slowly sweeping the ship bow to stern, port to starboard. No point in asking Mordin another round of questions. The frayed edges of the professor’s demeanor were all neatly stitched back up, not a bit out of place. But in that butcher’s shop of a hospital, she’d stared into those large black eyes and seen herself. Seen her own reflection staring back at her, jaw muscles tight, eyes hard, nose crinkled in disgust.

He had flinched, and in the black mirror of his eyes, she had too.


	13. Unclean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Collector Ship was a place no one wanted to be. Yet, there Zahra was.

The oxygen from her suit was fresh. Clean. Almost sweet.

Inside the collector ship, heavy boots squelched through the runoff from the dead bodies. Piles of dead, stacked like cordwood. On Tuchanka, the females had been wrapped, shrouded, given something in death. 

This wasn’t a charnel house, not even a slaughterhouse. It was a factory. A factory that had only one output.

The shotgun was a reassuring weight in her hands as she shot the collector to pieces. 

It didn’t surprise her, the illusive asshole pointing her in this direction as a set up. He’d already done that on Horizon. Why should this have been any different? He needed his data, his numbers, his intel. To fight a war, hard choices had to be made.

But what else hid underneath those choices? What rot lurked underneath the means to these ends?

The scrubbers whirred and wooshed, a puff of cold air hit her nose.

Chitters shivered through the ship. Up ahead there was another group of collectors. Determined to stop her. One of them sized, and the being that called Harbinger taunted her. 

Zahra threw herself at it. 

The world blurred in a blue, streaking corona, like a personal mass effect jump. From point A to point B faster than most minds could comprehend, the world slowed and she pressed the heavy shotgun against a chest that had once been Prothean. The heavy kickback twanged up her arms, making the metal bones vibrate, up to her teeth making them clack together. Electricity fissioned up her spine, into her skull, blue lighting danced in front of her eyes.

A hand touched her shoulder, the barest brush of another biotic field. She whirled, heart in her mouth for half a second expecting the impossible.

The red of Thane’s goggles stared back at her, opaque. His masked head tilted. Wrenching her shoulder out from underneath his hand, she raised her chin. Grunt lumbered up next to her. Their shotguns matched now. What a stupid thing to notice in the middle of a death mill. In the middle of a systematic attempt to exterminate.

But maybe the Reapers would make the trains run on time.

“Come on,” she said hefting a shotgun she shouldn’t be able lift, let alone endure the recoil. Her extra parts made it all possible. “One last push.”

“Right behind you, Shepard,” Grunt rumbled. His eagerness focused to a spear-point. 

Thane’s head dipped in acknowledgement. “My arm is yours, Shepard.”

Zahra ran right into the horde of husks that came screaming for them. And she didn’t think about the people they used to be. About the person she used to be either. Her breathing grew short, not enough air for this gruesome work. 

Another puff of cold, sweet oxygen hit her face.


	14. Desire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We don't always want things that are good for us. Zahra lives in that state permanently now.

The void of Morinth’s eyes battered through the flimsy barriers Zahra had built around herself. 

It would be so easy, so fucking easy. To fall into that void. To be allowed to _stop_. That was what she wanted, wasn’t it? That secret desire at the heart of her. To lay down her arms and armor and stop fighting. To be allowed to go into that void.

The void she had escaped at sixteen. Alone.

Red light bleed into the blackness that was in front of her eyes, the pitch blackness that filled her vision, her world. The heavy tread of boots and the gutteral sound of, what? Voices. Voices that weren’t human— 

_“Get rid of them,” the slaver shouts, spittle flying from too-sharp teeth—_

“So much death,” Morinth whispered. Her lips brushed Zahra’s ear. 

_Grey eyes stare sightlessly up at the ceiling of their pre-fab home. A perfect black hole between Dad’s eyes, her eyes—a cough behind the kitchen counter, Zahra sinks to her knees in her mother’s blood, words breaking her lips with red, viscous bubbles—_

Her hand curled around Morinth’s wirst. Full, purple-painted lips curve in a grin that’s supposed to be seductive. All hot, dark promises, but red coated the inside of Zahra’s vision.

 _Karima presses Norah’s face to her chest—drawings scattered all over the house, science projects left to run, nothing left, nothing left, Zahra huddles on a cot in a tent and they tell her she still has to go to school when she can’t figure out why anything matters, and she’d do anything to_ **_feel_ ** _again. Anything—_

Zahra reared back and slammed her forehead into Morinth’s perfect nose.

“Not this time,” she growled.

The contest between mother and daughter was fast and brutal. And over with a breathless sigh as Samara choked the life out of a four hundred year old murderer. Out of her daughter.

On the Normandy, Zahra sat next to Samara and didn’t say a word. There was nothing to say. The void between the stars was deep and dark, as dark as Morinth’s eyes. As dark as the part of Zahra’s soul that had been dredged up and laid out in front of her all over again.

After she did not know how long, Samara placed one slim but strong hand on her shoulder and squeezed. 

Zahra left and tried to sleep in her own cabin, but red-tinged memories floated to the surface one after the other, Reapers and Protheans, and the Beacon and the Conduit and her _life_ — 

_The Reaper lands heavily on the ground of Mindoir, and the world burns—_

The scream died in her throat. There was nothing left to scream about.


	15. Tested

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you want to know something's breaking point, you need to test it to destruction. 
> 
> TW: for everything that's ick about the Overlord DLC.

Zahra forced her hands to be gentle, careful. That was the last thing she wanted to be right now. God, she could happily grab Gavin Archer by the back of his neck and slam his face into the glass again and again and again. Until his skull split open and blood got into his eyes. Until he tasted salt and copper on his tongue. 

“The square root of—” David’s voice kept up the mantra over the speakers, a young man who had been damaged by the person who should have protected him.

_ Karima presses Norah’s face to her chest _ —

She blinked the memory away and focused on the kid who was alive. If this could be called living.

Wires and tubes and his eyes forced open. Tears streamed down his face. Her gauntlets were too rough, so she threw them off, tossing them over her shoulder. “Hey now,” she said quietly, softly. Never had been good at taking care of someone, but like hell she’d leave him there a second longer than necessary. Carefully, she undid the eye restraints first. “I’m getting you out of here, alright?”

He watched her with kind eyes, eyes that  _ trusted _ . Jesus fucking God in Heaven. Static crackled over her skin, making the machines that kept David Archer alive beep little alarms of warning. Fixing Miranda with a glare, Zarha snapped, “Get up here and get these tubes and wires out of him.  _ Fucking. Now. _ And you,” she pointed to Jacob, “if the doctor runs, shoot him.”

Cerberus, she’d brought the two little lackeys along. Didn’t like either of them much, even after being forced to see them as people with their little worries and loose ends. But something her mother told her once had floated to the surface:  _ if you want to test something, you sometimes have to test it to destruction. To see how much something can take before breaking _ .

At the time, Zahra had thought that her mother had applied the tactic to her. To test her, to push her, until Zahra turned into a daughter Miriam Shepard could be proud of. Now, now Zahra wasn’t so sure. Maybe it had been, in Mom’s own way, something like advice. How much could Cerberus personnel take before they broke, and broke away?

Then she’d know, wouldn’t she? Could they still make excuses after this? 

Miranda was delicate but deliberate as she freed David from his restraints and the life support machines. Jacob glared down at the doctor, hand on his pistol. 

With a gurgle and a heave, the intubation tube was pulled free, and David almost fell in a heap. Zahra caught him easily. Barely more than skin and bones, she could have carried him in her arms like a child. Instead, she got underneath his arm and hugged her free arm around his middle. Goosepimples broke out over his skin. He hadn’t needed clothes in the chamber, but exposed to the cool air of the base, his naked body shivered. 

“Let’s get you some clothes, buddy,” she said, hauling him down off the platform and to a locker. Standard jumpsuit, she sat him down and helped him get into it like her mother had done with her, when she’d been little. Remembered motions not her own. “Left leg, right leg, there we go, and arms first, before we zip it up.”

His eyes followed her every move. The litany of math had stopped, and now there was nothing but those wide, silent eyes in a gaunt face. 

“Need to get you some real food, but how about some sleep, yeah? Bet you could use some real sleep.” She kept up her own litany all the way back to the Normandy. Didn’t let go of the kid, either. Saw him to Chawkwas and a real bed, lights out in the Medbay and the window shutter dropped. Stayed until his eyes drifted shut and his breathing evened out, blanket tight around him. She left without a sound.

Through the briefing room door, she wanted to go in swinging. Pin Miranda and Jacob both to the far wall with her biotics and test them, test them until they broke, like David had broken, like she had been broken down. But when she entered, they both bowed their heads, couldn’t meet her eyes. There was no defiance, and Zahra forced her hands open and set them on the table. 

Sparks danced down her spine, up into her short hair, along her teeth. Grey eyes glowed blue.

“I hear one good word about Cerberus on this ship from either of you, you even so much as  _ think _ there’s anything redeemable about any part of this, you remember what you saw today. You hold it in front of your eyes and think very. Fucking. Hard. I don’t care that there’s no red tape, Taylor. Or that they give you  _ resources _ , Lawson. Remember today, and ask yourself if it’s fucking worth it. Now, both of you, get the fuck out of my sight before I change my mind about airlocks.”

The door hissed behind them, and Zahra let out a slow, even breath. Blue rimmed the edges of her vision. Ran a hand over her face and went back to the Medbay. Jack lounged outside the door, for once coming up for air.

“Heard you took the Cheerleader and the Lackey to task, Shepard.” Her raspy voice purred with satisfaction, and her full lips curved in a vicious grin.

Her fingers curled into a fist. “You seen him, Jack? Seen the kid?”

“No. Why should I? Cerberus fucks us up all the same—”

Zahra grabbed Jack’s arm and shoved her through the door, ignoring her yelp of protest. David Archer curled up on a medical bed, the scars of the tubes and wires stark and raw on his pale skin. “Tell him that, then,” she hissed.

Full lips curled in a sneer, but behind those big brown eyes there was a flicker of animal panic. The urge to run, to flee, to not see what  _ she _ could have been reduced to. What either of them could have been. 

“Let go of me, Shepard.”

Fingers bit tighter into Jack’s flesh.

“You’re not the only victim in the galaxy, Jack.”

“I’m not a victim.” Sullen, angry, like a teenager, still. But was she telling this to Jack, or herself? She let Jack go. The former prisoner rubbed her arm, red fingermarks lingering. “Not anymore.”

“Then you can help me with him.”

“What? Like hell! Is he some kind of—”

“He’s autistic, Jack,” Chakwas said evenly, in those polished, smooth tones. “Whatever you went through, you were able to build psychological distance between yourself and what you endured. David was not so fortunate. He cannot help but feel. And this was done to him by his own brother and carer.”

Jack’s face twisted up in a grimace, a mix of annoyance and pain playing across her features. “Fine, I guess. At least. Fuck, at least  _ you _ got him out. He won’t. He won’t have to run.”

“We’ve got some time until we can get him to Grissom Academy.”

“Don’t think this means I’m going soft. I still want to blow up that facility.”

Jack’s eyes glinted dangerously, but she regarded David’s curved back with a thoughtful kind of frown. Zahra gripped the young woman’s shoulder and squeezed. Not hard, but enough to get her attention. A grin as sharp as broken glass cut across her face. “Once the kid is in safe hands? Yeah, me, too Jack. Me, too.”

Because some of them had already been tested beyond destruction.


	16. Hurt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, when you hurt, you need to break something else down. As you've been broken down. Or, in Jack's case, blow something up.

_ Click _ .

Inside the dimness of the shuttle, Jack’s thumb flicked at the cap on the detonator. Armored back pressed close up to the metal bulkhead, Zahra crossed her arms and watched. 

_ Click _ .

Leg bouncing, Jack breathed out in little agitated puffs. Barely holding back. Big brown eyes searched for a way out. There wasn’t one. The shuttle they were flying was it.

_ Click. _

Thumb hovering over the button, Jack met Zahra’s eyes. A face normally lined by bitter rage softened, and for half a second all she could see was a scared girl. A kid. The kid Jack had been.

The kid she never got the chance to be.

The shockwave hit the shuttle. Grav plates warred with the force of the explosion. Zahra braced in her seat as her stomach did flips. Jack let herself be flung, flung forward, and watched out the viewing port as an inferno consumed the jungle. The fires reflected bright in her dark eyes.

But there was no way to cleanly burn away all the shadows. In the red-dimness of the hold under engineering Jack turned her face into the darkness. “I want to stop carrying it with me.”

Fingernails bit into the palms of her hands. “You will,” Zahra lied. “It just takes time.”

“Heh, and megaton explosions.” Full lips stretched into a grim, vicious grin. 

Zahra offered up something like one of her own. “Those don’t hurt.”

“No,” Jack rasped, “no, I still want them to hurt.”

“Yeah,” Zahra whispered, “yeah, I get that.”

The engine thrummed overhead. A steady heartbeat that filled the void. Like blood in her ears.

“I suppose you do.” Jack sat up in a sharp, sudden burst of motion. Like it could all be put away so easily. They both knew it couldn’t. Some small part of her knew that the only way to put it behind, was to let it go, set it down. But setting it down could mean forgetting, and forgetting would dull the edge, chip the knife’s point, lose the focus.

Because some people still needed to be hurt.


	17. Feed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zahra starts to wonder if she has to be this way, if she's feeding the right part of herself. Object lessons from Zaeed and Garrus make her think about it a bit more.

_ Control yourself, Zahra! _

The memory of her mother’s angry tones spiked through her as Zaeed set the refinery ablaze. His face snarled at her, voice a vicious rasp. Her fingers curled into a fist and she didn’t even remember the distance between them. The plates over her knuckles slammed into his cheekbone.

Eyes, one green, one dead, glared at her.

“Do it.” Her voice was a low whisper. “Let’s try this here and now, Zaeed. You don’t like me right now? Tough fucking shit. You wanted my help, and you fucking screwed yourself right out of it. So now? Now, we’re going to save those people, or I’m throwing you on the pyre with them.”

Grey eyes with an arc of blue stared right back.

And he looked away.

Whatever came next, he looked away first. He backed down, and when the metal beam slammed down on his leg and trapped him, Zahra sat back on her heels and wondered if she should leave him. Him and his revenge behind.

_ The one you feed, Zee _ .

She offered her hand.

* * *

“I remember that story you told me,” Garrus muttered. Two bright, pin-point eyes stared out the window of the car. The desolate hollowness in his voice said everything he hadn’t. When she didn’t say anything, he coughed awkwardly. “The story about the two wolves?”

Her lips thinned, and she kept her gaze fixed forward. Fingers drummed idly on the steering wheel.

“I tried, you know. Tried to feed that better part of me, but it just got harder and harder. Started to wonder if that part of me was there at all.”

Breathing as evenly as she could, Zahra gripped the wheel and stared off into the distance. The neon lit darkness of Zakeria Ward streamed past her gaze. If she squinted, the reduced visual window messed with her cybernetics and she could almost believe she was staring at multi-colored stars streak past.

“Shepard, you alright? You going to say anything?”

“Not sure what there is to say, Garrus. You might have noticed, I’m not the pep talk sort anymore. Punch card’s expired.”

“Then why did you stop me, Shepard? If you don’t care, if you’re done with all this, then why did you care if I killed Sidonis or not?” The edge to his voice was as sharp and pointed as the tip of a knife. Dug under her skin, up under her ribs. Right to the heart. Or where the machines that powered her heart were.

“Because that part of you is still there, Garrus,” she said, voice barely audible over the hum of traffic. “Even if you don’t think it is.”

_ Ten deep breaths, sweetheart _ .

He hummed, not convinced.

But then, she couldn’t blame him. She wasn’t convinced either. At least not about herself. But she was more than her hate. More than her anger. She had to be. Even if it was only barely. Because there was no unseeing Zaeed’s willingness to let people burn for his revenge. Because she couldn’t unhear Garrus’s broken bitterness for his men’s deaths.

And if she died tomorrow, that wasn’t what she wanted to be, not once. Hard to remember who she had been, what she had been. Hard to go back to that when the scars she remembered were gone. When the scars she had were the ones Cerberus had put there when they had cut out the dead parts of her.

_ The one you feed, Zee _ .

The illusive bastard might have taken nearly everything from her, but she wouldn’t let him take one more damned thing. Not  _ herself _ . And that, that was the best revenge she could think of.


	18. Want

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zahra starts to want things again. Things she shouldn't. The start of some Thane romance. If you can call it that.

Reaching around her middle, Zahra opened the catch of her chestplate. One snap, then another. The bright red stripe down the black poly caught in the blue light of the fish tank. Free of the weight, though it didn’t weigh all that much, not really, she rolled her shoulders, her neck. Bit by bit, she peeled armor away from sweat-sticky undershirt.

Hadn’t done more than fired a single shot and punched a few people in the mouth. Not much of a mission, and yet her arms were heavy and her legs shook.

_ Just a boy. A scared one at that. _

_ The neon lights shine in through the window. His black eyes flicker between her, the C-Sec agents, landing finally on his father. Brow ridges draw down, and Koylat’s mouth sets in a hard, angry line. _

_ Zahra knows that line all too well. Righteous anger in dark eyes, brown not black, lit by a burning, betrayed sky. Honey over gravel rails at her there, “I loved—” _

Sucking in a hard breath, Zahra forced her eyes open and glared around the empty cabin. Overhead, the stars streamed past the blue mass effect envelope, and there wasn’t anyone who could see her here. Except.

If she only knew where the bugs were, then she could tear them out of the god damned bulkheads. Shucked out of her armor, she found her way to the shower and stood under the scalding spray until the whole bathroom was a fog.

As alone as she’d ever get. Her head hit the tiles with a soft clunk.

_ Thane holds his son gently in a dingy Ward apartment. From assassin to father, Thane risks a backwards glance and catches her eyes with his own. Large and dark and like the oceans he talks about. His lips move silently, and she knows the words they form. _

There had been an unbearable peace in Thane’s eyes. Peace. Jesus fuck, how could he look at her like that? Like he was  _ alright _ . He was dying. They were all going to die. What gave him the right to reach out again? The right to want and hope.

Hands curled into fists, Zahra forced her breathing to be even.

_ The one you feed, Zee. _

_ You need to control yourself better, Zahra! _

She  _ wanted _ to be better. God, she  _ wanted _ . Wanted what? Something, anything. The hot water bit at her skin, just shy of actually painful. Droplets ran down the fine lines of her Frankenstien’s monster scars, the scars she had learned how to see when she’d been able to look past the lack of scars she’d been familiar with.

“ _ Thank you, siha _ .”  _ Thane’s voice is soft from lips that she just manages to notice are full. The word, it has the flavor of an endearment. Siha, ahuva, the taste of baklava honey-sweet crisp on her tongue, and she wants what she can’t have. Something soft, something good, something that isn’t burning wires and bitter lines. _

Heart unsteady, she pressed open palms to the tiles. Not hitting, not breaking, but unyielding.

There was no room for want. No hope for peace. Not for her. At least this time if she died, she wouldn’t leave anyone behind.

No one to glare at her with that bitter anger. Not again.


	19. Windmills

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kasumi sees too much, and Zahra doesn't like it. But she's trying to be less grumpy about it. Trying being the operative word.

The spine of the book was surprisingly suple under her fingers. All Zahra’s books were beyond her reach now. Lost somewhere with her footlocker that had never joined her on the Normandy. Could still be on Arcturus for all she knew. Hadn’t bothered to look it up anyway.

These were well cared for, though. Treasured. Loved.  _ Be _ loved. Not like the battered paperbacks she’d inherited and lost.

“You can take one if you like.” Kasumi sat curled up on the couch, eyes fixed on the stars out the viewing window. It was easy to hear the words the thief didn’t say.  _ You’ve taken enough from me already, what’s a little more? _

Zahra let her hand fall away from the book. 

The thief turned around and fixed her with a knowing look. Too knowing. Purple painted lips turned down at the corners. “Funny, really, for you to tell me to let it go. I’ve watched you, Shepard. There’s a lot you aren’t letting go right now.”

No, she wouldn’t rise to that bait. Wouldn’t cow the thief, wouldn’t get in her face. Wouldn’t growl and threaten. No. She was not doing that anymore. That wasn’t the part of her she fed. 

“Nothing to say to that, Shepard? I would have thought it would get something out of you.”

“Tell me about the books.” 

The bright pin-points of Kasumi’s tech-enhanced eyes glowed under her hood. Then, slowly, the hood turned and a raised eyebrow aimed in Zahra’s direction. “Didn’t peg you for much of a reader, Shepard.”

“Depends on the book.” Fingertip followed the ridge of spines carefully. Gold embossed titles shone dully in the low light of the lounge-turned-cabin. Those bright points didn’t leave her face. She worked her shoulders together.

“Hm, interesting.” Purple painted lips pursed. “Don’t tell me, you like romance?”

Zahra snorted.

“Yeah,” the thief drawled, something almost like a grin curving the corners of her mouth, “I didn’t think so.” As soft as shadows, Kasumi stood and joined Zahra at the bookshelf. Gloved fingers traced Japanese characters. “The Tale of Genji. One of the oldest extant copies you can get. Untranslated, though. I do have something that you might like. Don Quixote, the Man of La Mancha. English version, so not terribly valuable, but I did enjoy it.”

“I think I’ve tilted at enough windmills,” Zahra drawled. “Not sure I want to read about someone else doing it.”

“Never read it before, have you?” Zahra shrugged at the question. “It’s not just about tilting at windmills, you know. It’s an open question what Cervantes was really doing. Was it just comedy? Was it social commentary on the ills of society? Or was it lamenting a lost age of heroism, which, by the way, never existed in the first place? No one knows.” Kasumi gave Zahra a sidelong look. “You really  _ don’t _ talk much, do you? Garrus and Tali said you were fairly chatty once upon a time, but I guess not anymore. Keeping it all inside now, aren’t you?”

Teeth clicked together. “You trying to get under my skin, Kasumi? Come on, out with it, what are you after?”

“Fine, if you want to take all the fun out of it.” She sighed and leaned back, crossing her arms. “I want from you what you asked of me, Shepard. Let it go. You’re the one leading us into God knows what, and if you don’t want to come back, none of us will.”

“So you want to live after all?”

The ghost of a smile curved her lips. “Keiji would be upset if I followed him too early.”

“Just like that? You’re better?”

“Ha! Oh no, Shepard. No one gets better  _ just like that _ . But you were right about one thing, letting go of Keiji’s graybox means I can’t hide from myself. I might be good at hiding in general, but I’ve always been honest about who and what I am. I think you need to take a good look at yourself and do the same thing.”

The stars were bright outside the window. The debris of a life closed in around her. Paintings and sculptures and books. In her cabin, a picture on a desk. Not a gift, a threat that she couldn’t stop looking at.

Kasumi pressed the book into her hands. It was heavy, solid,  _ real _ .

“It’s yours.”

“I can’t—”

“It’s a gift. 

Zahra opened the cover. The waft of paper and binding glue hit her, and for half a second she was small and her dad turned a page with a wetted finger. No reading books off datapads, not for his daughters. Real books, real things, and a real life. Even Mom hadn’t disapproved of her somewhat erratic reading habit.

“After all,” Kasumi went on, “you gave me something similar. A way to put memories behind me. This might help you.”

“I’m not a fast reader.”

“No one said you had to be.”

Those purple lips stretched in a real smile. The book closed with a snap, and Zahra inclined her head. “I suppose not.”


	20. Hold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tali's in trouble, and Zahra can't help but step up.

In engineering, Tali wrung her hands. More like that kid she had been two years ago than the woman she’d been on Freedom’s Progress, on Haestrom. 

“Traitor?  _ You _ ? To the Fleet?” Zahra snorted. “Tali, you couldn’t betray your people if you  _ tried _ .”

“I know that, Shepard. And I’m glad at least  _ you _ know that. What I don’t know is why this happened. I know we have an important mission—”

Zahra grabbed Tali’s wrists. Kept them apart, no more hand wringing for the kid. She could do that much. “We’ll head there now. Besides, give us a good test on the new systems we’ve been incorporating.”

The quarian’s dark chuckle was barely audible underneath the thrum of the engine. 

“Probably shouldn’t try to sneak up on the Fleet, Shepard. They won’t like it.”

“Yeah, well, right now, I don’t like them much.” The snap, the growl, it all came back so easily, like it had never been away. Not for Tali, not for— _ a boy half again her size towers over Norah, clever little Norah who knows all the answers, but she doesn’t know the answer for this, so Zahra shouts, “Hey! You!” _

The glow of Tali’s eyes scrunched behind her mask, in the way that Zahra knew that she was smiling. “I should have known. You’ve always had my back, Shepard.”

Underneath the wires and metal, a crack ran through Zahra’s chest. Plates shifted, moved, fissured and broke apart to reveal something old, something come again to the surface. Her fingers squeezed down on Tali’s wrists for a fraction of a second longer, then she let go.

* * *

On the Rayya they called her  _ vas Normandy _ , and Tali couldn’t help but wring her hands. Static crackled over Zahra’s skin, her helmet filled with the sharp tang of ozone. But that wouldn’t help Tali, no matter how much she wanted to start throwing punches— _ The boy runs at her, Norah forgotten but Norah’s screaming, screaming, afraid for her, but Zahra doesn’t wait for him to get the first punch in.  _

“Politics,” she muttered under her breath after taking the Admiralty Board to task. Always nice to shout at someone a little bit. Even better on someone else’s behalf. 

“I would like to say that this is unusual for the Fleet, but,” Tali trailed off, shaking her head. Talking to the Admirals themselves didn’t go any better. Some allies, some opposed. One absolutely insane. At least Regar was there, and Veetor. The kid from Freedom’s Progress. Doing his level bit. 

But that wasn’t the problem. Not really. Not why she had snapped and snarled at the Admirals like they were idiots right out of Boot.

“Tali, about your dad—”

“He’s still alive, Shepard. I’m sure he is.” What Zahra wouldn’t give for Ashley to be here right now. Ash was always better at taking care of the kids than she was. In stuff like this. One hand on the kid’s shoulder, one squeeze, that was all she could do here. Tali shrugged it off.

* * *

On the Alarei, Tali wrung her hands over her father’s body. Breathless denials fell from her lips in between hard tears— _ Norah cries, the bully laid out with one mass-effect powered punch, and she scoops up her little sister _ . No time to think, Zahra hauled up the kid, the girl she’d met on the Citadel years ago, the girl who had grown up so much, but still needed someone, needed  _ her _ .

Arms squeezed as tight as she could around Tali’s shoulders, tucked that helmet under her chin and just held on. Their armor clacked together, awkward, uncomfortable. She didn’t let go. 

* * *

On the Normandy, Tali held her hands out. The quarian questure of greeting. Zahra gripped those hands tight. A couple of days since Rael’s death was made clear, a couple of days of keeping an eye on the kid from a distance. Today the best engineer she’d ever known had seemed a little more like her usual self.

Then those fingers squeezed Zahra’s so tight.

“I know, I mean, I don’t know if I can ask, but does it get any better?”

_ Blood bubbles between mom’s lips, dad’s sightless eyes follow her, Norah sees her across the landing pad and nearly leaps out of Karima’s arms _ — 

“It doesn't.” The words left her, spilled out of that crack in her chest before she could stop them. “Not really.” Behind the mask, Tali’s face fell.  _ They’re yours to protect, ahuva _ . “But time and distance, it dulls things.”  _ If you let it, _ she didn’t say.

Tali shifted her weight, nearly a fidget while her hands were occupied. “On the, the first Normandy, you told me that you and your mother didn’t get along. That you fought. How, how did you know, after she?”

A spot behind her breastbone suddenly ached. Like she’d eaten something too spicy. Zahra rubbed at it, frowning. “The last thing your dad thought about was you, Tali. That’s how you know. How you’ll always know. Not the geth, not the Fleet.  _ You _ .”

It settled over Tali like rain, dry soil soaking up the notion. Parched for the very idea. She raised her head, the mask only a little fogged over.

“You’re right, Shepard.” One last squeeze of her fingers. “And thank you, for everything. I couldn’t ask for a better captain. Or friend.”

The corner of Zahra’s mouth twitched. Once, twice. Something like a smile curved her lips, for once not pulling painfully at the skin of her face. There was no ache in her chest.


	21. Fissure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You can't save everyone, especially not from themselves.

Liara’s fingers trailed over the keyboard.

Zahra’s chest tightened behind the metal reinforced breastbone. Anything, something. Could take her hand and drag her away. But Liara was an adult. An adult who knew her own mind. Bone-deep certainty in blue eyes no longer young and wide and open.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” She made herself ask that. Liara arched one brow line at her. Dry and withering as any desert wind.

There was nothing of Karima in Liara’s poise now. Being around Karima had been like being around still water or tall mountains. Her surety, even as a kid—“ _ Don’t, Zee, you shouldn’t, you’ll get in trouble, Mom will be mad and ground you, and then who will walk me and Norah to school?” She hangs off Zahra’s arm, pulling down a raised fist. _

Liara was all eager anticipation to turn back to those reports, to sift through the data and find secrets and the lies and half-truths that wound around them. 

How had she let this happen? How could she not stop it?

She should have been able to stop it.

“You need the Shadow Broker, Shepard.” Liara raised her chin, defiant. The storm outside was silent, but the shutters were open. It raged, yellow, screaming winds and forked lightning.

No, she wanted to say. No I don’t. I need— _ Karima with her nose in a book, Karima practicing her dance recital steps into the night, Karima with the language of their people on her lips and the light of candles in her dark eyes. _

“You’re right,” she lied past a closed up throat. “I do.”

The smile that Liara gave her wasn’t so bright or wide as it had once been. Too much between then and now. Not all of it was time.

“You should come back after a little while, Shepard. It would be good to see you again, once I have things more under control here.” White armored hand gestured at the base. The fortress. The prison. A cage of information, data that she could surround herself with to make herself feel useful. Safe.

“Yeah, I will,” Zahra said, but didn’t promise. No more promises. Because there wasn’t enough left of her to do the right thing. To do what she knew she should. To— _ Karima presses Norah’s face to her chest and meets Zahra’s eyes one last time, and those dark eyes soften and know and understand. And forgive _ .

Her hand hovered over the button for the airlock. Press that, and she would go back to the SR-2. Leave Liara here with a battered young man and a mountain of intrigue. Zahra glanced over her shoulder one last time. Already working, back to the door. There should have been something she could have done.

Zahra pressed the goddamn button. The airlock hissed, and the ache in her chest split open again.


	22. Dual

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dual natures are at play, and Zahra doesn't have enough of herself left over for any of it. Or does she?
> 
> Start of the darker Thane romance in earnest.

Zahra’s fingers curled into a fist. Closed, open, closed, open. The air was dry, sharp in her nose.

“If I have given offense, I apologize, Shepard.” Thane’s voice was a low hum that tickled the back of her skull. She shook her head, like she had water behind her eardrum. What time was it? She’d lost track wandering the decks. They were somewhere, headed back to Omega. Refuel, resupply. Not the safest option, but the closest. 

And no one paid attention to the  _ her _ behind her eyes there. People on Omega had their own problems.

“You didn’t.” Open, closed, open, closed. Everyone had problems. Everyone on the crew had an ask, a little loose end to tie up that she’d done that. Mostly. Had to get them  _ ready _ , didn’t she? Ready to die. What did she have? Her gaze fell to her open, empty hand.

Near-black eyes regarded her across a cold, metal table. Why was she even here? It wasn’t any kind of gravity pull, no. It was something else, but she couldn’t fucking figure out what it was. Didn’t look long enough at it. Didn’t want to.

“All the same,” he said slowly, with all the care he put into laying down a body, “from what I know of human behavior, you appear agitated. I cannot help but think it is something I have said that caused this, and if that is the case, I am sorry.”

“God, did you the hanar drill excessive politeness into you, too, or are you just like this?” she snapped.

Another hum. Thoughtful, considering. He leaned forward, hands folded in front of him like he was some kind of academic instead of a trained killer. The corners of his lips turned up, though, and there was something alive in those nearly reflective eyes. “I was not aware politeness was unwelcome. Perhaps my understanding of humans is incorrect.”

“We’re a bundle of contradictions, us humans.” Crossing her arms, Zahra dug her fingers into the fabric of a uniform she hated. Her leg bounced. What kept her here? 

Narrated memories that burned bright across his voice, an echo of the memories burned into her brain by the Beacon and tangled up with a horror show all her own resurfacing as her brain knit itself back together. The connection between bodies and souls. Her body cut apart and flesh replaced with metal, did that mean that parts of  _ her _ were missing, gone forever? Disconnected from her body, untethered in space. Just a body was all she could be, maybe. Not enough of her left to make up the gaps between the wires and black boxes that tick-tick-ticked over.

Saren had bartered away his body for a lie. Cerberus had taken her body from her for their own ends. Means and ends, means and ends. 

_ The one you feed, Zee. _

_ You need to try harder, Zahra-ahvua! _

_ Zee’s home! Zee’s home! _

She ran a hand over her face, less and less red, but small cracks remained under the pads of her fingers.

What had he said were preferable memories? The taste of another’s tongue in your mouth?

_ He tastes like beer and ozone and winter, and she can’t get enough _ —

Under the cage of her chest, a hot spike bubbled up, like magma through the mantle. Unbearably hot and viscous. It burned as it spread through her, her breathing coming short, sharp gasps. 

Not here, not now. 

Shooting to her feet, the metal chair flew back. Static cracked over her skin, and her fists slammed into the table, making it squeal. Thane didn’t so much as fucking move.

“You are struggling, Shepard. Your soul aches because your body remembers its death, and it has not been able to rest easy since it was rejoined. Not after a trauma like that.” Grey eyes glared at him, as wild as an ocean in a storm. Still as a statue, he sat with his hands still closed in front of him. “That kind of pain is not one you need face alone.”

With a grunt of effort, she pulled her fists from the dents in the table. “Don’t,” she growled, “think you know what this is. You’re dying, but I  _ died _ .”

“There are many deaths we can feel, our own is the least of them. And I am not speaking of the lives I took in the course of my work, no. Those deaths were not mine to carry. As the lives of those you fight in a battle do not weigh on you, nor should they. I speak of the deaths of those we shared a portion of ourselves with. When those close to us die, they take a part of us with them. My wife took all of me with her.” A breath shuddered through him, like he was about to fall into a memory, his eyes flickering, but then he surfaced and met her gaze steadily. “Or so I had thought.”

Zahra recoiled.

No.

Not again. Not this. There wasn’t enough left of her for this. There couldn’t be. If there was, and she was here instead of somewhere else, with someone else— 

“We are more than the sum of our parts, I believe is a human phrase that applies.”

Zahra closed her eyes. The red-black behind them burned, and she couldn’t take it anymore. Nothing soft left, but she wanted, oh fuck she  _ wanted _ . Thane stood opposite her. No brush of his biotic field to give him away, but there was  _ something _ . It wasn’t gravity, wasn’t something that pulled or compelled a fall. It was resonance. Death to death, across the space between them.

“Considering I don’t fucking add up to much right now, that’s a kind of comfort.”

“Then, I am glad to have given you that much.” His mouth moved soundlessly for a moment, as though testing something, and then he said in the barest whisper, “Siha.”

Zahra wrapped her arms around herself again. It was cold in here. She was able to be cold again. The heat of her cybernetics couldn’t ward off everything. Thane’s cautious hand was warm on her shoulder. There was more care in a dead man’s eyes than she’d expected.

Maybe there wasn’t enough left of her for what she wanted, but there could be enough left of her for more than nothing. For what little time she had left, until the parts of her were broken down again.


	23. Relic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zahra is a relic of her own past, walking among her own ruins.

It was cold on Alchera.

What an inane thought to have, Zahra chided herself. It was an ice planet. It was always going to be cold. But the cold worked in between the plates of her armor, under the hard seals, sinking past the fabric of her jumpsuit.

The stars were bright, though. 

But even looking up, there was no escape from the torn, twisted metal of the Normandy. The empty husk of a ship was scattered over the ice. For two years, wind had swept snow inside the ruins. Little else remained but those fragments.

Dog tags glinted in the lights from her helmet.

Brushing away the dusting of snow, she picked them up. One after another. Metal stamped with name, rank, serial number. With the ident chips and all the automated systems, the Alliance still used dog tags. The names of the dead had been known for two years. Anyone who didn’t make it off the Normandy was presumed dead. But this, this was near as she could come to collecting the bodies. Seeing them home.

Her one last duty as their commander.

Wasn’t Alliance anymore. No matter which way she cut it, there was no getting around the Cerberus logo on the SR-2, on the jumpsuit she wore. In the remains of the cargo hold, Zahra shivered. Willilams, Ashely, she would have had choice words, no doubt about it. Looked Zahra dead in the eye and spoken her piece, because Ash had never been afraid of what she was.

Twenty tags jingled in the pack.

All that was left was to put up the monument. Not her idea. Monuments didn’t mean shit. There was one to her on Akuze, one on Mindoir to all the dead there. One of the krogan on the Citadel even. To mark the dead, to remind, to hold forever. Earth was littered with monuments. She’d seen a lot of them, taken the time to look. Tourists took pictures in front of them. But not here. Never here.

Only her footprints were left behind in the snow. 

On the SR-2, there was a cup of coffee waiting for her. Waiting on the arm rest of the co-pilot’s seat. Joker didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. It might take years, but the Normandy would eventually be buried under ice, disappear until those cold, bright stars didn’t reach the hull anymore. No longer glittering on the metal that had once flown through those stars. And her with it.

Zahra sipped her cream and sugar filled coffee, and Alchera red shifted into the distance behind them.


	24. Resonance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even a dead god can dream... and Zahra's already scrambled brain picks up more than it should.
> 
> Gotta love Prothean beacon messed up biotics.

_ Even a dead god can dream _ .

More like play host to God damned nightmares. Husks crawled out of every cranny and crevice. Pulling themselves up by twisted, tech-infected limbs. Screaming and howling, the shrieks made Zahra’s teeth ache.

“Got ‘em!” Jack crowed after another shockwave sent the horrors flying.

“With you Shepard!” Grunt growled, charging right behind her. A bull with his head lowered, his massive shoulders displacing husks and scions and God knew what else.

But a weight pressed down behind her eyes. 

Heavy, inexorable.

The dim, red lights of the Reaper carcass made her vision halo. Playing hell with the cybernetics in her eyes. But between one blink and the next, she saw another redness, the redness behind her eyes. An old, familiar drone that thrummed in the back of her head as— _ the organics scream, shrill and terror-wild as she descends, slamming heavily in the ground of their small, insignificant planet. _

“Shepard?” Jack’s gravelly voice was close, in her ear. A hand on her shoulder. “Shit, Shepard, you alright? Kind of need you here for this bit.” 

“Battlemaster, did they bite you?” Grunt nudged at her with his gun. Don’t do that, she tried to say, but she had to keep her teeth clenched tight. Gunfire rang in the dead Reaper, husks kept coming, and they were so close, too close.

The head of the nearest one exploded in a shower of blue and red. The body slumped to the floor.

Jack whirled, the crackle of her biotics a clean wash of blue. “Shit! It’s that sniper again!” 

“He’s good,” Grunt rumbled as he fired at the other husk.

Zahra swallowed heavily, acid still coating her tongue. “If he’s shooting at husks, I want to find him, but only after we get that IFF.”

“Garrus won’t like that,” Jack quipped. The husks were quiet now. It was all too quiet as they neared the center of the corpse.

“Heh, heh, heh, too many snipers. Good one.” Grunt’s heavy head swung back and forth, sniffing at the air. That was their first warning. The second was the screaming. Always the fucking screaming. 

The pressure behind her eyes hit her like a hammer blow. Red streaked across her vision, but this time she pushed back. One hand curled into a fist and a blue corona sprang to life around her. Sharp ozone filled her nose as the static crackled along her skin, making the hairs on her arms, her head, stand up. Pain buzzed in her teeth, her bones, but she used it.

_ The organics yell in defiance— _

_ The lights over the landing pad are bright— _

_ The organic’s ship slams into her hull— _

_ Zahra runs for her sisters— _

The run back to the SR-2 was a blur of red-tinged memories that were and weren’t her own. Her body dragged itself to Mordin’s lab, and she rested her head against a cool, metal table. Fingers that were surprisingly gentle lifted her chin and peered into her eyes. Her reflection in his large, black eyes was pale. Too pale.

“Interesting,” he muttered. “Prothean Beacon altered neural pathways, allowed you to understand language, receive impressions, visions from Cipher, other Beacons. Also, allowed for reception of other signals. Pharmacological intervention unlikely to be of much use.” The professor inhaled sharply. “Suggest mental strengthening exercises. Asari have many, will forward you reading.” He tapped out commands on his omni before that brief, almost studied smile flickered across his features.

The world didn’t streak red anymore, and Zahra tested her legs. They didn’t shake.

Amazing considering a dead Reaper had broadcasted right into her brain. No, don’t think about that, Zahra, she told herself. There was a geth in the AI Core, an IFF to install, and a base past the Omega-4 relay to destroy. If she lived, then she’d worry about her altered neural pathways. 

For now, she ignored the bile burning at the back of her throat and the memory of looking down at people and seeing  _ nothing _ .


	25. Sacroscant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There were some things that you shouldn't do, some lines you shouldn't cross. Even if it meant destruction.
> 
> A late and far too short Legion snippet.

The geth’s platform sprawled on the table in EDI’s core housing, like a body on an altar. 

Zahra rocked back on her heels pondering the sight. Miranda nattered away about having a unique object of study. Tali, Zahra couldn’t fault Tali for her glaring suspicion of the geth. Not after losing her father to them. 

She crossed her arms and frowned at the N7 chestplate the geth sported. 

Bit grim, that, with the massive hole in it. Had that happened to her body after her death? No, bad track to go down. Sacrifice for sacrifice, maybe. Or maybe not. But it was almost sentiment, or iconography. Patterning in a way that was  _ alive _ , not programmed.

“Alright,” she sighed. “Enough of that. EDI,” she called out, raising her voice. “Let’s wake it up. Get ready.”

The barrier field went up first, followed by firewalls and protocols, and a whole lot of unhappy opinions. Well, tough shit. It wasn’t her job to make people happy. Miranda and Tali washed their hands of it and left. 

The flashlight blinked. That was her impression. Not  _ turning on _ , but blinking. It moved, searching, seeking, and it stood. Coming back to life. More fluid than she would have given it credit for. A stream of digital noise came first, and then.

“Shepard-Commander, we are geth.”

Zahra didn’t know why it surprised her. Geth had always spoken, at least to each other. This was different, something else, something like the geth platform trying to be understood by something not-geth.

And for some unfathomable reason, it was trying with  _ her _ .

* * *

“We have a question, Shepard-Commander.”

Zahra leaned against one of the server housings for EDI’s processes. No more force field, no more guard on duty watching Legion all the time. She’d put a stop to both. If the geth wanted her dead, it could have put a bullet in the back of her head at any time.

“Ask away, Legion.” 

“We have noticed that Shepard-Commander speaks to us frequently, asks many questions, but often does so when most organics would be sleeping. Why is this?”

“I don’t sleep very well.”

It nodded, accepting that answer as few others would. Better than explaining what made her wake up gasping for breath, or feeling a phantom ache in her shoulder, or having to clench her teeth against the scream of a people not her own as extinction rained down on them. She ran a hand down her face.

“I have bad dreams,” she explained even though he hadn’t asked.  _ He _ . Not  _ it _ . That was new.

“We do not understand.”

Zahra puffed out a breath and said, “Dreams are—”

“We are aware of what dreams are, Shepard-Commander. The Creators studied many subjects, including neurobiology. Dreams are a result of the random firing of neurons while in certain stages of organic sleep. The reasons for dreaming were still unknown at the time of the Morning War, and the geth have not acquired further information on this topic. However, Shepard-Commander has misinterpreted our question. Our question was not why you fail to rest as other organics. Our question was why you seek out  _ us _ .”

Her heart beat slowly in her chest, and her hands clenched open and closed. A slow, measured breath passed between her lips. The AI core was one of the dimmest, quietest places on the ship. Only the faint hum of the engines and no drift of chatter from the crew.

Like when the churches in Rio were empty. Quiet.

“Because. Because you don’t look at me like I’m something I’m not. Hell, you don’t look at me like I’m anything at all. Can’t help but like that a bit.”

The aperture of his optical input expanded and contracted. His head cocked. Then he nodded.

“Shepard-Commander, we have reached a new consensus. We have information about the heretics.”

* * *

The aperture of Legion’s face widened, contracted. Indecision warred inside of him. The panels on the side of his head shifted to an agitated angle. No consensus. 

“We cannot reach consensus.”

“But you all agree that  _ I _ can make the choice?” 

“We don’t have time for this, Shepard,” Tali hissed. The tide of geth had been turned back. For now. 

“Creator Zorah is correct. Shepard-Commander must reach consensus before the heretics attack again.”

Heretical geth. A difference in doctrine but still reaching for the same goal. Still aiming for salvation. On a red planet in the middle of the Armstrong Nebula, these geth had kept, held close, a video of a quarian singing. 

_ L'Shana Haba'ah B'Yerushalayim _ .

_ Kelah Selai _ .

But it was a choice they had made.

“We can’t take a chance,” she said. “We have to end this.” Better to die as they were than to become something they’re not. That was what Zahra kept telling herself. The geth base, the base of the heretical geth, exploded without a sound in front of a field of stars.

And the memory of a machine watching an organic sing was lost forever. All that remained was the silence of space.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> L'Shana Haba'ah B'Yerushalayim, "Next Year in Jerusalem." A phrase typically sung at the end of some services during the diaspora signalling the hope that one day the Jewish people would return to Jerusalem.


	26. Inured

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zahra returns to the Normandy to find the Collectors took the crew. Does she like them? Not really. Is she going to do her damned job? Yes.

Grey eyes glared at the emptiness of the ship. Bright, but desolate, like a desert at high noon.

Couldn’t say she cared much for most of the Cerberus crew. The doc and Joker, they were Alliance at heart. And the engineers weren’t too bad, even if Donnely needed a punch to the face now and again. But the rest? With their  _ fuck yeah, humanity _ goals, or Chambers and her attemps to be a therapist. Didn’t have much use for them, if she was honest with herself.

But they had been on the decks of the ship she commanded. That meant they were  _ hers _ . 

_ Yours to protect, Zahra-ahuva. _

In the briefing room, the wood of the table was cold under her hands. Was real wood, too. What a fucking stupid expense to go to. They were waiting on her word. To go through the relay. To head out on a one way trip into God alone knew what. Black holes and exploding suns, as per Taylor. And one lonely base playing host to the twisted remnants of a people dead fifty thousand years.

All kinds of fucked up, but here she was. 

Another last ditch run. Another jump into the unknown.

_ The one you feed, Zee _ .

Maybe, if she hadn’t already died, she’d be afraid. Looking down the barrel of the end wasn’t so bad the second time around. Like going to a bar she’d been to before. The familiar darkness, the same sticky floor, the same crap food.

Zahra pushed off the table and strode out of the room and through the armory. Could have gone through Mordin’s lab, but she hadn’t. Like a test for herself. Hold to her choice. Taylor saluted, and it made her knuckles itch like always.

“Ma’am. Do we have a heading?”

“Yeah, we do,” she said, and didn’t bother to say more. He’d find out in a minute anyway. It wasn’t Aeia, that was for sure.

Alone in the CIC, Zahra mounted the steps and frowned down at the galaxy map. A few quick commands and it swirled before her. Beautiful in its own right.

“EDI,” she called. The bulbous hologram popped up. Didn’t need to do that. She could talk out of the speakers easily enough, and had. But since the shackles were gone, there was something more  _ personable  _ about her. 

“Yes, Shepard?” Time to ponder the fact that she had a free AI on her ship later. Right now, they all had a job to do. 

_ Karima presses Norah’s face to her chest. _

“Plot a course. We’re going through the relay.”

_ “I don’t regret a thing, Commander.” _

Her hands curled around the railing, tight. It didn’t sink in, didn’t work between the dead and machine parts of her, but it was true enough. “Let’s go get our crew back.”


	27. Bodies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She was just a body in space. And so was he.
> 
> The standard Thane Romance scene doesn't make sense for Zahra, so have this much darker, fractured take on it.

_ What am I? _

The question lurked at the back of her mind, had lurked there since she had woken up in a lab, shorn and whole yet somehow hollow. A woman of wires and metal. Skin to skin, Thane moved under her, his lips trailing along her collarbone, her shoulder, her breast. 

_ What is this? _

She tasted him, and the world splintered into colors and shapes, twirling, whirling away and away, a kaleidoscope of blue light and a green body. The Thane-shape looked into her eyes and furrowed his brow. His voice thrummed on words that slipped past her tongue. 

_ Was she alright? _

Her mouth captured his and she pinned him to the bed. He was dusty dry, a desert of stone and clear skies, a hammer of heat and the howl of cold as the sun rose and set. The fine scales of his fingertips thrilled over her arms, and she fractured.

_ What now? _

The glass of the aquarium was cool on her forehead. Thane lay sprawled in her bed, spent. Tired. Barely enough breath for himself, let alone her. Her body shivered, and she could imagine the servos whirring to life inside of her.

The parts no one could touch.

If she died again, would she find the parts of her that had died the first time? The parts that hadn’t come back? Would she be put together again?

Her fingers squeaked over the glass and closed into a fist.

“Siha.” A whisper, a prayer. But Zahra was no angel.

She shaded his eyes with her hand. “Go back to sleep, Thane. We’ll hit the Collectors soon.”

He sighed and settled, might not have even really been awake. Was it her he saw, or his wife, in those moments between? Was it him she felt, or the absence of another?

What was she?

Just a body. Just bodies in the dark trying to stave off entropy. 

What else could it be?


	28. Unfettered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For one, brief glorious moment, Zahra Shepard almost felt free. Felt like herself again. Apt that it happened as the Collector Base was exploding all around her.

It was just another job.

The SR-2 juddered through the relay.

Zahra kept her feet, but it took hanging on to Joker’s chair. The light of a thousand suns haloed the deepest blackness in the universe. A point so concentrated that nothing could escape from it. They were outside the event horizon of the black hole, and there was no escaping the notice of the Collectors.

Joker sheared the ship through the debris field, but Zahra’s pulse didn’t even kick up. Even when they crashed on the base itself, there was no dryness in her mouth, no thrill of anticipation of a fight. 

The illusive son of a bitch had brought her back for just this.

Everyone, everyone but her, got heated in the briefing room. Lawson pushing for leadership. Taylor pushing for anything. Handed the team lead to Garrus instead. Give a turian a job, and they’d do it. He’d done the same on the Normandy, would do the same here. 

_ Get them out, Vakarian _ . Had said that last time. Didn’t now. 

Her lips nearly closed up before she managed to order Tali into the vents. But the young woman was the best there was. Zahra needed the best.

Grunt was a one-krogan wrecking ball beside her. Thane gave her overwatch. He didn’t cough, didn’t inhale too sharply. Mordin had passed him something, and Zahra pretended to not have seen it.

The base was the Collector ship writ large. Tacky floors, pulsing lights, chittering around every corner. There was no way to tell if the base smelled like anything. The suit filters prevented it, but if it smelled like rot, like decay, like death, she wouldn’t have been surprised. Through the door, Zahra covered the rest of the distraction team. 

Even the passing horror of seeing another human being melted into nothing didn’t touch her. Didn’t reach into her chest and squeeze. The cybernetics that kept her heart beating tick-tick-ticked over, but the part of her that was her was as distant as Luna from Earth. Or just as dead.

She helped Chakwas stand up and squeezed the older woman’s shoulder because it was what she was supposed to do. But it wasn’t long before Lawson was at it again. Teams, distractions, the mission. Zahra gave Taylor his job, to get the crew back. He’d been asking for a chance for long enough. Might as well do it now.

Teams split, and Garrus went one way. Zahra followed Samara, Jack and Miranda on her heels. Her helmet smelled of ozone, and static from three different biotics clashed with her own field. Buzzed past with a lift, a throw, a slam, a warp. Shockwaves slammed into husks and sent them flying. 

It should have made her lungs burn, her legs ache at the pace. But it was rote, like she’d memorized it even though she hadn’t been here before. Pull, shockwave, fire, ad nauseum. 

Through the doors, one last stand. Taylor had kept the crew alive. Not himself though.

But gazing up at the giant human proto-Reaper, Zahra didn’t have to choke down revulsion or horror. She blinked, trying not to say  _ ah yes, of course they’re doing this, of course they’re boiling us down for soup _ . At some point there was a critical mass of  _ fucked up _ that anything more blended into the rest. Like light into a blackhole.

Then the illusive bastard tried to tell her stop.

Her jaw clenched. Her hands curled into fists. Stop?  _ Stop? _ Just like that? Set down her guns, lay down her mission?

“Go to hell, you illusive  _ fuck _ ,” she growled. 

The countdown was live, and Zahra ran. Her heart beat again. Overlocked the cybernetics in her chest, it hurt, but God it hurt like goodness. The Collector base collapsed around her, but she couldn’t keep the razor-sharp grin off her face. 

She was  _ free _ .


	29. Stuck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zahra Shepard went through the Omega-4 relay and lived. She hadn't expected that. Maybe the dead were the lucky ones.

Thane coughed in his sleep, dry and hacking. 

Sleep was as far away as the stars overhead. Millions of lightyears. It took millions of lightyears for the light of those stars to hit her eyes right at the moment the Normandy passed below them on the galactic plane. His back was to her, curled up on his side. 

Zahra sat up, quiet enough to not wake him.

The Cerberus uniform was all she had to hand, and it would do until they could get something better. The Alliance still didn’t want her back, even after kicking the Collectors in the teeth and telling the illusive bastard to get fucked. It was tight over her shoulders, but at least the boots fit.

It was quiet in the armory. 

Lights were still too bright all over the ship, but the armory was a place without someone in it. Taylor had asked for spot after spot on their mission. So she’d given him one. He’d paid for it. Figures, of all the ones who really irritated her, she had gotten that one killed. With all his salutes and playing at being a soldier. Pretend Marine.

Had left hadn’t he? But he saluted her like he earned the right to do that. Like he was anything other than a wash out.

Pistol on the bench was still half apart. 

Fingers worked of their own accord. Could breakdown and rebuild a gun like this blindfolded. Because she had, once. Again and again and again until the muscles remembered, filled in what the eyes didn’t know. By heart.

Weeks past the end of the mission, and the rest of the crew was sticking around. 

Maybe there were a few she could understand. Chakwas, Joker. Alliance personnel who followed  _ her _ , understood what being a soldier meant. The rest, she couldn’t figure. Miranda didn’t have anywhere else to go, her resignation gloriously explosive. 

The action needed cleaning. She snatched a rag and the bottle of oil.

Alright, she was Grunt’s Battlemaster, so maybe him staying made some kind of sense. Stick to your commander, no matter what. But Zaeed and Kasumi weren’t getting paid. Tali and Garrus had people to get back to. Samara had a code and a calling. Jack’s hatred of Cerberus burned just as bright, and the girl was at loose ends.

Barrel was clear. The magazine clicked home.

Then there were the real mysteries. Mordin’s motivations made only slightly more sense than Leigon’s. At least the professor was happy with stray samples brought back from anywhere. Those planets with a few mercs that needed kicking. Who the fuck knew about geth. 

Thane had a son.

Check the chamber, thermal clip could eject freely.

He had a son and yet he hadn’t asked to leave the ship. Only had left open datapads with pictures of deserts open for her to find. Zahra was pretty sure he wrote to Kolyat, and that the kid wrote back. But he was keeping his distance.

Sighting down the gun, she tapped the trigger but didn’t fire.

Distance was easy to understand. Too much, too soon. Kid might bolt. Might reject. Zahra could get that. Too much anger and uncertainty in a face that should have been more familiar. Her eyes flickered shut, and she could just picture  _ him _ . Had to turn the photograph away, couldn’t stand the sight of him in her cabin, not after she’d had someone else in her bed, but there was no getting away from him in her head.

Grey eyes shot open, finger squeezed on the trigger.

The burst rang off the bulkheads, the shrapnel lodging into the target set up. Taylor had hung those up. She had never used them. Never cared to linger here where he looked at her with hope. Hope that he could still be a Marine, a good soldier.

That hope had died with him.

She set the gun down on the workbench. Maybe it was a bad sign that it didn’t bother her as much as it would have. After Ash’s death, she had nearly punched a hole through the bulkhead. Taylor had done his duty, and that was the best she could say of him.

There were other places to be besides the armory, but nowhere she could be alone.

Back up to her cabin, it was as good a place as any. She shucked out of the uniform that wasn’t hers and crawled back into bed. Thane woke with a jerk and a cough. He tried to turn to her, but she pressed a hand to his back. 

His shoulders shook with another cough, and his voice was scratchy. “I am sorry if I wake you, siha.”

What came next? Collectors defeated, the Reapers were still coming. Coming and coming and coming. But that would be weeks, months even. A year if they were lucky. Time yawned open and empty in front of her.

Taylor was the lucky one, she thought. There had been no plan for  _ after _ .

She rolled to her side and flung an arm over Thane, pressed her palm to his chest. “You didn’t.”


	30. Pyrrhic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> God save us from such costly victories.
> 
> Zahra turns herself in after Bahak.

“Leave.” The order was flat and heavy in her mouth. No one moved. Her crew. The crew that had followed her through hell and come out the other side. But there was no coming out the other side of this.

_ They came for her, hot and heavy. An endless supply, wave after wave after wave. She charges between positions, slamming herself into enemy with less and less ammo to hand. The artefact pulses, thrums, presses against her brain making her teeth buzz. The Reapers are coming, and it drives her faster and faster. _

“I said,” she spoke through clenched teeth, “To get the fuck off my ship.”

“You don’t need to turn yourself in, Shepard.” Miranda crossed her arms, and Jack glared at the woman, muttering, “I can’t believe I’m agreeing with Cerberus Barbie here, but come on, you can outrun—”

_ The woman is out of her fucking mind. Hackett can’t have known what he sent her into. Welcoming the Reapers, keeping the light on for when they roll in to the galaxy. They could have had weeks to evac, but now, now there’s barely enough time to scramble so much as a shuttle. She knows what’s going to happen. Knows and keeps going anyway. _

Blue mass effect fields erupted around her fists, and it took everything she had to not unleash herself at them. To  _ force _ them away. “Joker, we’re making for Systems Alliance space, and if anyone is still on this ship they’re going to be locked up with me.”

Without looking back, she took the elevator up to her cabin.

_ “I'm sorry,” she whispered. Would never stop whispering between one breath and the next. The bitter calculus that demanded she push down on the device. Lock it home. And damn hundreds of thousands so that millions, billions would have a chance. Only a chance. Zahra stared up at the countdown, red numbers speeding toward the end. She pushed, twisted. Lock. _

Thane sat on her bed, hands on his knees. He reached for her with hands that had taken so many lives. She probably had outstripped his count now. By orders of magnitude. He licked his lips and blinked rapidly in the bright light. “Siha,” he whispered. 

She caught his hand before it could land on her shoulder. “I’m no angel, Thane.”

“You did what had to be done, there was no other way.” He was trying. God, he was trying, but she closed her ears to his rationalizations. So fucking  _ drell _ about it. “Your body did what it had to, to survive. Your soul, your soul should not bear that weight, siha.”

“Go to your son, Thane.” It was an order, bald and without inflection. He flinched. “He needs you.” He heard all that she didn’t say.

_ The Reaper taunts her, exalts in her eventual destruction, but that’s not what occupies her thoughts. She can’t take her eyes off the looming mass effect relay. It’s bulk heaves into view as the asteroid screams closer and closer. And behind her, warned with too little time left on the clock, a planet full of batarians cling to each other in what will be their final moments _ .

Joker landed the Normandy in the showiest fashion possible on Earth, right outside of Alliance HQ. Zahra stood in the gangway, poised before the inevitable. She knew what she had to do. There were former Alliance personnel on board who had refused to leave. Who were waiting on her taking sole responsibility. At the bottom of the gangway, she knelt and put her hands on her head. 

No one moved until one person shouldered forward through the crowd. He was huge, built like a Viking. Miles put the cuffs on her himself and hauled her to her feet. 

“What the hell, Zee?” he hissed in her ear.

“Asculum doesn’t have anything on Bahak,” she said flatly. He blinked at her with uncomprehending blue eyes.

_ She watches, makes herself watch, as the Normandy shears across space toward the relay seconds before the asteroid impact. At FTL speeds, she can’t see the explosion, at least she shouldn’t be able to, but the whole ship shudders as one end of the relay system fails behind it. She feels it, feels it up from the bottom of her feet to the top of her head, shaking what’s left of her soul in the fractured vessel that’s her body. _

A girl's hate evaporated in a system-destroying explosion. A hate measured out at sixteen, honed and refined over years, gone. In theory it was victory. If she believed in something, anything, she’d pray to be saved from another victory like that. But there was  _ nothing _ . Nothing out there except the Reapers and their slow flight to the next relay.

“Move!” Miles shouted. No one did. Cameras rolled, clicked, flashed, and Zahra stared them all down. Daring them. Come on you assholes, she wanted to scream, to snarl, you want a show, do I have a fucking show for you. 

Fire and salt across the stars, they would come for Earth. Come for her, and Bahak was just the beginning. There were no victories in a war for survival. Just the portion that remained no matter how small.

And Zahra knew she would not be among them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Battle of Asculum was where the general Pyrrhus won a costly, nearly ruinous victory, giving us the term Pyrrhic Victory. Zahra is a military history buff, after all.


End file.
